Italian architect Benedetto Camerana and landscape designer Il Giardino Segreto created a rooftop
garden called La Pista 500 on the rooftop test track in Lingotto, Fiat’s iconic former car factory in Turin.
Design Features
The garden contains more than 40,000 native plants,
and is part of a scheme to allow the public to visit the famous test track.
It has been dubbed the “electronic track” because it will now only be used by electric vehicles.
Designed by Italian architect Giacomo Matté-Trucco,
the building served as the headquarters for the Italian car brand from 1923 to the early 1980s,
and is topped with a track previously used to test each new car before it left the factory.
The track, which was featured in the 1969 movie The Italian Job,
will now be used to showcase the new Fiat 500 electric models.
The building has been updated twice by Italian architect Renzo Piano,
who added a glass bubble containing a meeting room in 1994 and an elevated art gallery, called Pinacoteca Agnelli, in 2003.
The idea of the test track has also been preserved and converted into a track for electric cars only.
So clean cars can drive gently between green islands,
searching for a new harmony between mobility and nature.
The park, designed with Il Giardino Segreto,
was also designed by the High Line in Manhattan by James Corner Field Operations and Diller Scofidio + Renfro.
Plus the Turin Eco Garden by Camerana, Emilio Ambas, Giovanni Dorpiano and Luca Renirio.
Nor is it just a meditative garden,
it has been designed with public functions in mind and relaxation areas for learning activities related to edible plants and coloring.
Design shape
The garden is also arranged on the 27,000 square meter rooftop and was formed by a group of 28 green “islands” scattered around the test track.
The green islands cover an area of 6000 square meters and have more than 300 indigenous species of plants totaling about 40,000 shrubs, trees and herbaceous plants.
Also, 300 species and taxa were selected to be truly indigenous,
rooted in Piedmont and the northern Mediterranean regions, with absolutely no room for exotic plants.
Some other exotic plants are cotinus also known as the “smoke tree”,
a strong carbon dioxide absorbent or a large family of Gramenes species,
which are long perennial herbs and ornamentals.
Industrial features extend around the green islands, including large tubes painted blue – above native perennials and shrubs.
Blue lines were drawn, delineating different paths, across the test track,
connecting the tracks to the large blue-colored pipes and dome that a piano had added to the roof.
The building also includes an exhibition space accessible from the roof garden.
Earlier in 2021, Twelve Architects revealed plans
for an elevated park in Manchester that will occupy an abandoned bridge.
Also planned is a high-class structure in Camden by New York High Line designer,
James Cornerfield Operations, and will span a disused railroad.
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